random posts

random posts

Friday, 31 December 2010

A very good and auspicious beginning to the New Year. This pipe-cleaner chim- ney-sweep with his ladder and lucky mushroom is one of the German symbols of the changing of the calendar, like Father Time and Baby New Year, and a few other unique traditions and rituals are explained here via the local.

Wednesday, 29 December 2010

Some time ago, I was hounding around on some celebrity gossip site and saw a movie poster for the most outstanding cinematic vision that I had seen recently: deadly, big-game hunting aliens visit rural England during Jane Austen's time, and the film was titled Pride and Predator. I have no idea whether it was ever actually produced or what the critical reception of it was or whether it was just a brilliant steam-punk concept, and would rather remain ignorant. Something a bridge further than parody or a tribute band, it is a fusion that is more creative than its constituent influences, fun, rollicking mash-ups--authorized or otherwise, have produced, not just repackaged, some outstanding vignettes: The Beestles (Beastie Boys versus the Beetles), Brokeback to the Future, the Grey Album. Classic board games, I think, would be excellent and rich fodder for mash-ups, and could be made to honour whatever character universe one wished, like Doctor Who Cluedo--it was K-9 in the Tardis with the Sonic Screwdriver, or backgammon-Jenga.

Tuesday, 28 December 2010

Christmas time can be a bit overwhelming and adjunct and accessory commem-orations are sometimes overshadowed, especially when they fall after the tension and subsequent relaxation of Noel and between the less demanding workshopping for New Year's. The Feast Day of the Holy Innocents is one such celebration--observed in many places with many regional variants. Though elided over, but not forgotten, this holiday, marked with pranks like April Fools' Day in some countries, has some very sage and sensible traditional admonishments: one that it is not auspicious to begin new projects on the day of the week that the Feast Day falls on (a year of Tuesdays, for instance) for the coming year, and two, further, to avoid engaging in work, barring emergencies, whenever possible also on that day of the week, progressing on to the next day of the week next year and on through the weekend.

A local research and development firm in Minnesota is promoting wireless internet via strobe-light and is installing the modem-based systems that works off of the same principle as Morse code: ceiling lights flicker on and off faster than the human eye can detect (though I imagine there might be subliminal residuum) transmitting signals--internet content, to a counterpart modem connected to a computer that can interpret these subtle oscillations. The company seemed to primarily take on this experiment in municipal office buildings in order to find a solution to diminishing band-width as WiFi, Bluetooth, cellular phones, G4 and VLAN compete for space above the general din--and also to create dual-use lighting elements for public spaces, which are always on away way, to provide connectivity without additional power consumption.

Moreover, I believe it is important that technology drifts away from WiFi and "electro-smog" in general. There's not so much discussion anymore about the dangers of cell phone usage and cell towers muddling-up honey bee navigation systems, however, wireless internet is even less tried and proofed, and I cannot imagine it is exactly beneficial to have trillions of bits of data tunneling through one's body from all sides at all times. Central to the Dune series of novels by science-fiction writer Frank Herbert, was the prohibition against "thinking-machines." Though hardly luddites, humankind had to revolt against artificial intelligences in order to save themselves, and maybe in the future, there will be a similar effort to outlaw all things wireless once ill-effects are realized and cultivate such smarter alternatives.

Sunday, 26 December 2010

Though living in Germany for many years, I cannot recall a holiday season when we were visited with such unrelenting, top-quality snow. It keeps coming down, occupying all available real estate, and turns seeing family and friends into a challenge, but one that we have been able to meet with success. There is no definitive answer why we are awarded with a second Christmas (2. Weihnachten) to celebrate, but it seems that the day is reserved for travel and alternately recognizing good service, since domestics and renters usually had to work on Christmas for their lords and ladies. The denomination of "boxing" relates to this charity, alms-giving but my favourite account, besides the the Irish traditions, was of the Christmasboxes of the Golden Age of Exploration, a donation box, which priests installed on great ships while in berth preparing for the voyage. Crewmates contributed coins to this box throughout their journey and presented it to the priest as thanks for a safe trip upon return during the next Christmas, who distributed the wealth among all his parishioners. Of course, this business with money was not to be conducted on a high, holy day. Adventures on the icy roads, where the wind curls and whips the loose snow like streams of plasma, and the sky is dark and heavy with successive storms, is a lot like navigating the high seas, and safe passage and return is something to be grateful for.

Wednesday, 22 December 2010

The wire services have just released its annual review of most significant news stories for the past year. Here are the top headlines, as pantomimed, by the classic stick figure samaritans and fabulists--all with quite thoughtful expressions, which one finds in the literature in the waiting rooms of school clinics, infirmaries and counselors' offices.

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill and its terrible environmental legacy with the industry and consumer choices and policy that perpetuate these disasters.

The Health Care Reform initiatives in the US, that showed America's strange sort of envy at odds with the true aims of the effort.

US Mid-Term Elections and reversals of power, that was harrowing for what was sometimes characterised as a weary and disappointed electorate.

The US economy and world-wide economic crisis with the bailout and contributing factors that precipitated the collapse and wherein lies the blame and the lesson.

The Association for the German Language (GfdS, Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache) last week in Wiesbaden announced its superlative word for the year: Wutbürger (enraged citizen). This choice reflects the mobilization of many to call attention to various, serious causes during this past year--protest rallies in Germany and abroad, from anger over the Stuttgart 21 train station renovation, to raising tuition fees, to atomic energy, to genetically modified crops, to austerity measures cued by financial instabilities, to immigration, to the privacy and protection of personal data, and all shades of solidarity in between. The German language is more tolerant of nonce words--and does not emphasize the novelty of the neologism as much, when appropriate to string a daisy chain of words along into a compound meaning. Wut, however, can also connote rabid--whereas, not all causes being equal, many of these protesters, I think they deserve to be called Mutbürger, brave citizen.

Brilliant artist Ape Lad imagines that the next cable dump would be the ultimate disclosure of Santa's exhaustive annual performance appraisals, and shares his vision with Boing Boing, which is hosting a lot of excellent, on-going discussions on the topic and reporting from fresh angles.

Tuesday, 21 December 2010

The weather, save for all the daily headaches and tension that it is creating for commuters and travelers, is really remarkable and feels like a good and proper winter, as compared to years' past when the cold and annoyance came late. Routines are more chaotic and treacherous and spoiled plans can take on the taste of sour grapes, but for all that, an over-abundance of snow and ice should not give people license to humbug global warming and environmental initiatives.

Global warming is an unfortunate misnomer, pars pro toto, that has stuck, but broader climate change can embrace both hot and parched and frozen. The expected milder and rainy weather in the British Isles and Central Europe are sustained by the Atlantic Gulf Stream's or any other body of water's alternating current, which exchanges warm equatorial waters for colder arctic ones. Some tinkering with this global machinery has equally global results: altering the salinity of bodies of water, like from fresh water formerly locked up in glaciers and icebergs, effects how well heat can be transported. Extending the idea of greenhouse gases to ideas as venerable and basic as the theory of colour, the gleaming whiteness of snow and ice reflect back some 90% of heat and light projected on their surfaces. Whereas, open ocean water, instead of iced-over or peopled with icebergs, a craggy, bald mountain, as opposed to a snow-capped summit, absorb up to 90% of the light and heat falling on them, warming up all their surroundings and making more surfaces to capture the heat. All this seems to cascade down, but it seems to suggest that a little influence in the opposite direction could also have a big effect--that's what can cause white snow to dazzle one's eyes, makes piles of it in parking lots linger and can enchant snowmen. It's what makes the season certainly memorable, these challenges, and scenic, and for all the cursing and frustrations, shivers and sickness, it should be nothing to put people in the spirit to question or long for ecological collapse.

Sunday, 19 December 2010

My mother was sharing with me a documentary she watched recently that posited that Jesus was of extraterrestrial origin. Imaginative and an idea to throw out there--it reminded me of the researchers who have suggested that those unaccounted-for years in the life of Jesus during his adolescence were spent on a pilgrimage to India (where the Wise Men were from) where he learnt the ways of the swamis and sages of the Far East and brought them back to Judea--I had no idea that there was such scholarship, speculation and a following attached to it.

My mother recommended that I write a gospel on the subject, which in actuality does not seem so far removed from the penchant of humans to model allegory and reinterpret meanings to fit what we are familiar with and what is needful--and not saying that the feats and miracles of Jesus were not enough or are no longer interesting and relevant with out some alien angle--but it seems that there's already an exhaustive amount out there: in addition to cleansing the sins of all of mankind, forever, it seems Jesus intervened to ensure that the Earth remained the domain of the Earthlings. Comsic overloads seeded the primordial Earth with the genetic material that would eventual evolve in their image and cultivate a planet that would be one day suitable for their return. Alien Jesus, however, fought for human liberation, and this historic enlightenment could be portrayed in several ways, depening on the sensibilities of the audience.

Humans have not yet perfectly intergrated universal love and charity nor have they successfully displaced mortality, so it is not as if those Christian attributes and virtues are old hat, and though interesting and demonstrates that religious scholarship is a living entity, maybe it is a bit premature to reading the New Testament as a survival guide for preventing alien enslavement, though do not dismiss that possibility since it has always been a versatile and elastic document thus far. Talking with my mother also made me remember visiting a Jesuit church that seems rather unassuming and conventional from the outside, but on the inside has this most fantastic and benign altar and adornments to Space Jesus and his Apostles.

Saturday, 18 December 2010

Precipitation in the form of snow can be quite the contrarian for the weatherman. I suppose it seems to buck the forecast in part because it lingers and the upbuilding of the flurries, not like rain that's an event, welcome or unwelcome, that is mostly obligingly soaked up or siphoned off. Snow transfigures the landscape and the view from one's windows like quite nothing else, dark of night nor lushness of Spring in full bloom.

It is quieting, calming with its insistence, mounting and enduring, that invites one to consider all the millions, billions of particles of it, flakes buffeted and flocked or bullet-like projectiles something more cardinal than a cloud suspended or the water of rain drops, and something that seems just a bit outside of nature's cycle.

Thursday, 16 December 2010

It is remarkable how the disclosure of a few uncomfortable realities, suspending plausible deniability, can spark even more surrounding an unlikely target of vitriol and sympathy. Though this lowest form of McCarthyism is left in the public’s eye to judge but certainly not to prosecute regardless of opinion and colourfastness of the case, the current theatre is by far mild compared to the private, invisible punishment that the known informants are enduring, and considering all the wrath and ire it seems that this taunt, venture, duty would have been undertaken with more contingencies.

It might be preferable to remain an inmate in some Tower of London, or suspended in some legal limbo on a warrant with the force of the very same deficiencies and unscrupulous dealings and poor taste of statecraft revealed, rather than being extradited, disappeared to face all the dirty loopholes of law and sore egos. That there is little remaining, in terms of financial institutions, jurisprudence, that cannot be easily converted into extensions of US foreign policy is disturbing. At least one is more or less guaranteed a pulpit in certain venues. Maybe the threat or bluff to release more embarrassing dispatches was sufficient, though I bet a good portion of zealots, one way or another, would like to see those revelations cascade down for the opportunity to use their full quivers of weapons.

Monday, 13 December 2010

Early in the morning? It is not so remarkable how fads come and go but I think it is seldom that a musical instrument, the shofar, the octarimba, the orcana endears itself to international language only to be quickly forgotten and neglected. I could never quite master the embouchure to get a good, steady sound, but it was fun to try. Repeatedly. Since this summer's World Cup, I am sure that they are all hidden away in cupboards, but maybe the vuvuzela could make a come-back--for New Year's, for instance.

Sunday, 12 December 2010

Archeological researchers in the UK and the Czech Republic, and most archeological digging is done in the library or the mind, theorize that a large flood plain near the Fertile Crescent, now submerged in the shallows of the Persian Gulf since about eight thousand years, could have once supported an advanced Dreamtime civilization, whose ancient and half-remembered existence could be the stuff of legends, like Atlantis, and time before the biblical floods. Conventional wisdom holds that human progress is pretty much a closed-account, a straight trajectory from the Egyptians, to the Greeks, Romans through European enlightenment with the details still be worked out, but a lot of new discoveries, which were always there waiting to be noticed, suggests that the human world is much, much older and development has sometimes been retrograde.

The tribes of the remote Andaman Islands have been living in virtual isolation for the past sixty thousand years and probably represent one of the first migrations out of the African continent, and recent excavations in South Africa reveal a sophisticated coastal society using tools and agriculture possibly for some eighty thousand years, working metal tens of thousands of years before the process was supposedly invented in Europe. The lost civilization of the Persian Gulf could have also been highly advanced. Much can happen, unrecorded and with no recoverable trace, during these intervening ages and in the billions of unpeopled years before. Just coming to terms with the shrinking of the unexplored world and the implications of the scientifically-accepted age of the Earth and the universe, science-fiction writers of the Cthulhu mythos cycle invite readers to reconsider the prevailing arrogance that nothing much was happening in the meantime, except mechanical evolution. The world’s unimaginable age could accommodate the rise and fall of countless societies, in addition to the Sea Monkey Kingdom and the Utopia of the Dinosaurs. Not all the hidden places have been tilled and there may yet be a renaissance in exploration that is not led by how far or deep or close we can look.

Friday, 10 December 2010

Mentally preparing myself for the challenge of the snowy roads crunchy with ice--they are even colour-coded apparently but are not red or amber but decidedly white, I took the time to collect some of the infinite wonderful vignettes associated with Christmas--the Nativity scenes, suites of Nutcrackers, Santa Clauses and Snowmen without end, moose, reindeer, and the trees.
Sometimes I feel that capturing the moment is not quite within photographic prowess, but decorating and the general background festoonery are great things, and the detail on mantle tops, showcased or otherwised shoe-horned into every free space is fantastic and brings the holidays into a brighter, sharper focus, like concerted dioramas every where one looks.

Wednesday, 8 December 2010

I can hardly fathom the excitement circulating daily among star-gazers and astronomers as news comes daily of new, perceptive altering discoveries and researches agree that it is only a matter of time before extraterrestrial life is discovered just through brute force. Recently, scientists discovered a star shrouded by a halo of cubic zirconium clouds. This was something unexpected.

Based on spectral analysis and the distribution of elements observable in the solar system, no one anticipating the sort of concentration, which possibly questions a lot of the assumptions and speculations about the possible configurations of biology, most tend to be carbon chauvinists, as Carl Sagan put it. Of course, carbon chemically is a good basis because of its abundance and versatility and tautologies abound against a radical departure from the familiar configuration. It is fascinating to puzzle out, with valances and affinities, the feasibilities of hypothetical biochemistry. Given enough patience and true-believers, alien life will be found, and soon, I think, but it is prudent and an imaginative—necessary for shedding terrestrial prejudices—exercise to entertain reasons why life, in all its lushness and creativity, has not shown itself elsewhere. There are two classes to this, I think: the first relies on dangerous assumptions that alien life is immediately familiar and appreciable, that alien culture and technology are somehow analogues or extensions of our own. Such an alien race may be hiding or just plain hiding in plain sight, wary of showing itself for fear of how extraterrestrials fare in the majority of human cinema or over humans’ violent propensities. Maybe we have shown ourselves not as the sophisticated beings we like to think we are, such as during wars or holidays and other moments when it would be very hard to explain to the outside observer.

We do not really broadcast our intentions or culture too well these days, not the least of which, over dwindling radio signals, replaced by cell-towers and encryption that offer little for listeners across the galaxy. Since we stopped talking or pursuing outreach programs, maybe aliens think we are not around any longer. The second class requires us to expand our search and definitions: maybe aliens can only manifest themselves to us as a pleasant shade of blue and their technology to us is only abstract and accessible as a mild phobia or nut allergy. Maybe the aliens, or a certain subset since the variety must be immense, believe that automobiles are the dominant form of life on earth. Or maybe, looking at earth bombarded with solar radiation with just a pitiable gaseous atmosphere to protect it from solar radiation, others assume that our planet would not be a likely candidate to harbor life. When it does happen, and I think that the later is the more likely case, I just hope it happens in a way that vilifies all the writers of science fiction and those who dreamed a little.

Tuesday, 7 December 2010

It is strange how prophesies can become self-fulfilling, and now I can imagine a recursive, almost play-by-play account of what present and future cables entail about destroying their arch-nemesis. It is remarkable how quickly the underlying infrastructure collaborated, folded in order to tow the party line. Financial crises and failure of statecraft precipitated by America, full-disclosure theatre to counter terror-funds and if privacy is violated then we're sorry but it's the terrorists' fault, really, had already pushed institutions in Switzerland outside of their venerable comfort-zones of secrecy and did not want any additional trouble or scrutiny--never mind the track record of minding funds for any of history's despots, wanted or otherwise. It's the same with the wire- and hosting-services that have managed to monopolize the domain but will sell out at the first hint of controversy. That should make any one feel uneasy about the control ceded and entrusted to a few, unavoidable corporations and arrangements. No one should stop talking about this, even as headlines fade or are trumped by the next sensational distraction or dwindling tolerance and attention--I think a few troglodites secured equal time over the threats to hold a very real book burning over the perceived threat of an inclusive community center. It is not really their fault (nor pardon) that their clout cannot be spared because of their levels of exposure, but there should be alternatives in place in case of freezing, stopping movement and so the public can express solidarity and/or distaste--otherwise smug and self-interested activities become targets on one and all fronts.

Monday, 6 December 2010

There seems to be quite a bit of trafficking in back-handed compliments lately. The US Federal Communications Commission is floating a bill ostensibly promoting net-neutrality but is really a wolf in sheep's clothing, since its language gives the bureaucracy a substantial foothold in pushing regulations and standards. Aside from making muffling dissenters and broadcasters less bothersome for government censors, facilitating internet taxation, and requiring a license to tweet mirroring the government's own information assurance and non-refutability model, setting policy, like the creeping scourge of US monetary policy, extra-territorially. The internet is borderless and lawless but leverage can still be exercised, and such indirect and diverted influence is the only really the only arsenal that the crippled dollar can afford. The untold billions that America has underwritten through the International Monetary Fund, despite the yielding value of the currency and threats of inflation, to bolster the European Union is more shaky scaffolding, increasing dependence on the continued shared economical delusion. If the IMF conducted itself more becomingly in First World nations, as opposed to opportunistic and predatory ventures, why should Ireland have put up so much resistance to easy credit? Maybe there are not nascent military dictatorships to prop-up in Dublin or desalinization plants to push, but there are certainly chances to pout over failures to act in alignment with free-market traders, cooperation over environmental protection, policy cheerleading and centralized blacklisting, or the world-internet police. Let us hope that some key players have a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Future this year.

Friday, 3 December 2010

Though sometimes the space agency indulges the media with rampant speculation and Christmas morning excitement and anticipation, and though no evidence of extraterrestrial life was proffered, NASA's press conference did manage to deliver some outstanding news that redefines not only the way we look at life on earth but also in the search for alien life and prime stellar real estate. Bacteria in the alkaline incubator, Lake Mono in California, have evolved the ability to substitute toxic arsenic for phosphorus, heretofore considered one of the elements essential for basic biological chemistry, along with oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. This discovery makes novelty and resourcefulness of life less familiar and less self-centered and opens up great avenues for exploration, dispelling some old assumptions that could hinder the search with blinders and overly selective criteria. NASA's research is a pleasant surprise, following on the heels of an astronomical false tenet disabused earlier this week, that rewarded us with countless more stars in the sky.

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Most US federal workers are handsomely compensated as it is, mostly for keeping-up-appearances. Part of the out-of-date and out-of-touch rationale, historically for around two percent annually, awarded at the beginning of the year, was as a retention bonus to compensate for the difference between public- and private-sector salaries, ad infinitum--which does not make much sense because there are few real corollaries.

Following the example of US state and local governments, the federal government has decided to freeze the pay of its civilian workforce, with notable exceptions, in a cosmetic gesture of solidarity to unbalanced budgets and as a concession to a divided legislature. While not arguing for another entitlement or casting aspersions towards civil servants that have been furloughed or had their salaries cut, this is squandered political capital, since nominal fiscal savings will go unnoticed as will any cross-party appeasement, and the only segment of the population that will take notice will do so in a negative way, because a few will suffer privately by diminishing their spending power by two percent or so (not to mention a proportional two percent into 401K plans, retirement accounts, income tax, etc. although most of that is just a shell game too) in exchange for only negligible public benefit. Efficiency and trimming expenses where quality and morale is not compromised is a virtue but feckless actions are disgruntling.

Tuesday, 30 November 2010

Diplomacy is not duplicitous and is nothing if not transparent and truthful--thought not espousing or pretending that all the details are baldly set forth for debate. Personally, I am not sorry at all for America's spillage of information and opinions that was never meant to be cast out in the open, since America readily and gleefully reserves the right to monitor any and all habits, activities and communication of any one, and with no cause.

These revelations, however, will bring about no reform, an attitude adjustment or even more caution about what one commits to email. Although such empty concepts as information-security or private-email are oxymorons, and such a daisy-chain is amazingly tough and long-lived, I believe rather than giving government officials cause to question seepage, whether it is necessary to disseminate data scattershot and indiscriminately, reward staff with super-secret clearances, or horde and encourage all and sundry to contribute to the glut of data. Any piece of covert or private knowledge is only protected by a herd-mentality--the private doings of most are not the focus of a tenacious investigation and carry little to no public interest, and while the medical histories of anyone could be plucked out of the ætherher, usually the government, press and businesses are overwhelmed with too rich a selection of low-hanging fruit. Instead of taking this leak as a point of departure, to evaluate attitudes or disposition of digitizing communications--of which, emails are not final testimony and should be never taken as such, regardless of password integrity and security obstacles--cooperation and exchange will only wither away. Turf-battles have already resulted in a lot of damaging resistance to share valuable insights, ending in missed opportunities and catastrophe. Keeping tabs on every anonymous member of the horde across all disciplines created this mentality and this blossoming mess. Diplomacy serves to promote collaboration, and it is ironic that the revealed state of the US ambassadors will yield tighter controls and tightfistedness.

Monday, 29 November 2010

The initial leak of high-level gossip of the diplomatic corps is may or may not of been in the best taste on the more sensational items: saying one leader lacks creativity or competency or is risk-adverse is just mean-spirited and makes for poor-working relations now that all these cables are out in the open, Ombudsman 2.0, where they cannot be denied or taken back. Some of these truths are manifestly apparent, even without careless documentation, however, there is no accounting for transparency.

Disclosure does not bring down regimes, although quite the opposite is true--that secrets have vouchsafed the bad things that government does. Ambassadors are entitled to the framework of their opinions are prejudices to work within or fail trying, however, the public is also entitled to knowing, regardless how the truth is ousted, the catalogue of other information revealed: like the German government is lousy with American spies, the US has pressured EU ministries into compliance for sharing of financial data despite resistance and no popular mandate, German authorities were strongly discouraged from pursuing justice against CIA agents who detained a citizen over mistaken identity, that the UN and the Secretary General are under surveillance, Saudi Arabia continues to bankroll terror activities, or that there are conspiracies for nuclear proliferation in the making. All this was only in the first batch, and meanwhile, the damage-control continues, inviting more speculation, in contrast to the apologies issued by the press, arguing for their decision to publish. Unvarnished truths may destroy diplomacy, relations built on old niceties and inherited respect, but also dispels the illusory embassy and the propaganda of American supremacy, which even the spokesmen have come to believe.

Sunday, 28 November 2010

The United States Department of Homeland security, the umbrella agency that has brought already such thundering farces as government sanctioned assault in one’s friendly neighbourhood airport, all sorts of theater of the absurd, wiretaps, datamining, general molly-coddling, and gross incompetence and derelictions of duty when the chance to exercise the authorities vested in them actually came around, has moved to shutter several websites, which according to their own judgment [citation needed] and estimation, facilitate traffic in pirated and counterfeit goods. Allowing the government to brandish around such power is nothing new, nothing different than any other hyper-fascist regime censoring the media, no matter what higher ground it is claiming. America’s goon squads have no proprietary rights to the world-wide web and throwing an arbitrary veil over its own doings is likely to cause headaches and quash creativity and objective reporting, and let them try to exercise their power extraterritorially since the internet is borderless.

This is a slippery slope, however, for an agency with such Renaissance interests—which could not possibly pretend to be an expert in them all, even in the name of security, employees legions of disinterested and unchecked lackeys to condemn websites—to have the final say in what content, specious connections, and other terms promote national welfare.

Such powers, first sold out as a campaign promise to luddite lobbyists, the

entertainment cartel or the tele-communications companies, quickly spill over from making an example of a few unfortunates that did not play by the rules in the first place to redirection to suppression of any detail disagreeable. Rolling over on this or that slight has become too commonplace, since the insults are coming to quickly and without adequate recourse nor even rest to recuperate, but America should not ignore this creeping menace any longer.

H is a superb treasure-hunter and I am really fond of one of our latest additions: this vintage perpetual calendar made for an airline ticket counter. I really like old adverizing collectibles and this one reminds me of a time when flying was glamourous and exciting and was living up to all the things that one expected or imagined that air travel should be, far-flung lands and adventures, liberated and accessible but still mysterous and demanding high, genuine accomplishment over tenacity and the wearisome and interminable planning and waiting in queues. Though maybe not so carefree and with details and distractions easily bulldozed over afterwards, the adventure and fun, in the journey and in one's destination, has not be tarnished.

Friday, 26 November 2010

Mark Twain observed that, “Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.” This rings quite true for quite a bit of the annual mandatory refresher training that they expose us to at work—dry, rote and predictable and just enough delaying tactics to bring down a lawsuit settlement in appeals. After making an obligatory appearance at a drug and alcohol awareness class, which in all fairness featured a quite funny stand-up comedian whose message was important and appreciated, though possibly just endured for those who were seeing basically the same routine for the fourth time, I realized that these required audiences, not so insufferable, are like holiday traditions, unquestioned, like watching Dinner for One (Der 90. Geburtstag) on New Year’s or It’s a Wonderful Life at Christmas time. I did realize, more by its breach than in its keeping, I did miss out of this year’s winter driving safety, which was no less a chore to schedule around but anything but stale delivered by our German safety officer who speaks like Colonel Klink. And if no one takes anyway anything else from that course, replete with PowerPoint slides, he always quotes statistics that drivers, though one would expect that they are expert and accustomed to wintery conditions, panic during the first snow flurry of the year, which we are receiving now, only to decline in number of accidents and incidents as the season continues and as the roads become even more treacherous, regardless of how many hard winters, tyres swapped out, and otherwise girding themselves for danger. Maybe that says something about practice in itself.

Columnist Laurie Penny of the New Statesman sends a dispatch from the latest round of student protests in England against tuition rate hikes. This anger follows demonstrations in Germany and many other European countries where budgetary shortfalls, real or imagined, and austerity measures, imposed or voluntary, have undermined the ideal and priority of the equitable promotion of a literate society. This is something worth fighting for and the students' efforts from Dublin to London to Paris to Bamberg and all points beyond and in between are valiant and should not go unnoticed or unheeded.

For those outside of the European education system, and not counting only those laureates and their families who have been direct benefits because the whole society benefits, the nominal tuitions and selective admissions process might seem unfamiliar: it amazes me that the approach to education in the States compared to the rest of the world could have diverged so greatly, on the one side, merit-based and underwritten by the state and on the other prohibitively expensive and undiscerning where even public universities are run for-profit through the Ponzi scheme of student loans and financial aid, which seems likely to be the next bubble to burst, and not to mention overcrowded, unrealistic and generally unremarkable in all disciplines. Perhaps thinking such targets of budget cuts would be forgivably (or forgettable) unpopular, politicians have been unprepared for the backlash, especially in England and Ireland, where rescue-loans from the EU and the IMF came with too many strings attached, and putting university fees on the line was one way to portend fiscal balance. This sort of sacrifice, however, is unwelcome and ill-advised, like the tragedy that will be facing Iceland--again over finances--when the next generation is forced to leave over lack of opportunity. Tripling tuition will have the same effect, leaving one's native landscape diminished and becoming more like the university system of America in price and quality, and that kind of collateral is on terms that no one can afford, regardless of their credit-worthiness.

Wednesday, 24 November 2010

What sort of daily sentiments, gems of wisdom, especially shop-talk or the poetic haikus of sociopathic rage that the boss of my boss has scribbled on all too ephemeral note pads, would you like to turn into keepsakes? Crochet it on a pillow? Steotch, the New England needle-artists, has produced a vast selection of such samplers, adding a touch of kitsch and permanency to tag-lines and memes, internet doctrines and covenants not necessarily captured in tee-shirt form, from Transportation Security Administration awkwardness to LOLCats (give us this day our daily cheezburger) to Peanut Butter Jelly Time to O RLY owl to Double Rainbow. A happy and humourous Thanksgiving to everyone... Om Nom Nom.

Sunday, 21 November 2010

A bloggeur on Tumblr has a sizable and tasteful collection of animated GIFs from great films, the bulk from modern classics by Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Jean Luc Godard and Tarantino under the blog If we don't, Remember Me. ﻿ Unfortuneately, I can only share a static image from the compliation, but I really admire the scences, just a few frames each, that the author choose for their subtle expressions and nice quotes. Animated GIFs remind me of those Cracker-Jack prizes, little postage stamp sized things with varigated surfaces, that when turned askewed revealed a new picture and the illusion of movement and change. To get that right in the limited framework of available technology, like within the parameters of a graphic file, is much more impressive than embedding flashier presentations.

Saturday, 20 November 2010

Der Spiegel, via thelocal, reports on a tip from a would-be defector that warns of a Mumbai-style terror attack on the German Reichstag to be carried out in the Spring. Since when is kicking it Bombay style a way to talk about stratagems, as if it were comparable to à la russe or Stockholm Syndrome, because as dreadfully effective and tragic as it was for the city of Mumbai, storming Parliament and running amok is on a different level. It is just tacky shorthand.

Given the calm and collected reactions of the Ministry of the Interior, taking these developments in stride, I feel confident that with this warning and insight, the public will be kept safe—though Germany’s quitting Afghanistan altogether would probably be a cheaper and more expedient way to curb terror threats. One other item about this tip that seems suspect, however, is the speed with which authorities leaked this to the press and how quickly the news filters to the public forum. Transparency and disclosure are very important and ought to be expected, but maybe this threat, source and intelligence was too quickly put up for speculation and argument, even without all the details. That the luggage bomb couriered from Windhoek to Germany turned out to be a security test, a dummy, which no one is taking credit for planting, would also make me a little wary of tipsters and possible self-fulfilling prophets of gloom. When the news broke, before it was discovered that the suitcase was a tester model, I tried to fill in the blanks, remembering that Namibia is a former German colony, but now the country is a bit upset over the bad, and misdirected, publicity. Much of the war against Iraq and the regime of Saddam Hussein was prosecuted on the testimony of exiles, some of whom were later shown to have more complicated agendas and motives, but despite purity of evidence, it was taken as such because that was what the defenders wanted to hear. The exiles were very obliging.